Saturday, 16 November 2013

So I'm currently half way into a vehicle project set by Codemasters; which must be set within its own suitable environment in the final render. This brief has a heavy focus on the use of shaders they provided and additional maps to bring out the material qualities of the vehicle.The idea of creating my own vehicle was tempting, however I knew all to well that the concepting and design process for me would take well over a week and would really set me back I felt. I settled for an aircraft eventually since at the time I was tempted to go for an aircaft featuring during the World Wars, since I was familiar with multiple models featured, however I didn't feel that I would be making decent use of the tris budget over my final choice, so I settled for the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. It has a very distinct shape and it it renowned for its shark and warthog nose jobs; I felt this project could be a chance to take that part a step further.

The process of creating the plane was pretty straightforward, albeit the parts where the engines connect with the body and the parts at the rear of the wings, it took a while o get the geometry looking correct.

At this stage I had a good 2,000 tris remaining, however I considered how would I have it in its environment without its landing gears deployed? It just wouldn't look right, so I proceeded to producing the gears. The nature of these was more complex than anticipated and I had to compromise in certain areas since I eventually exceeded the limit. However I was able to return to below bydget by removing several unnecessary loops in the geometry.

I have just finishing creating a hangar which will serve as its environment, I want to complete all modelling by the end of the day so I can move on. As mentioned earlier I want to concept some potential paint jobs and see how they look as this would allow some variation in the material qualities.

Monday, 4 November 2013

At the end of last week I presented my idea for my Final Major Project. In short: Castles.

I have always been a fan of castles, cathedrals and buildings with similar architecture. During the summer I visited Raglan, Caerphilly and Chepstow Castles to gather some first hand reference. Together this trio provided a tremendous range of tiling brick textures, window frames, gates and doors.

Initially I was intending to focus solely on the exterior but I found some beautiful interior rooms such as dining halls, chambers and staircases.

During one of the visits I had access to a variety of siege weapons which gave me the idea of having the level set in the aftermath of a siege. Having part of the castle wall destroyed; and perhaps revealing passageways into the interior.

In addition there were books with recreated images and cut-throughs of various portions of castles to show how the interiors would have been.

Inbetween castle visits I also managed to gather some statue reference, you gotta have statues in a castle.

Factors I want to consider are:

- Assets- Location- Sounds & Effects- Scale

The latter is crucial as I have been informed that we'll have less time then previous years.

The pitch was met with approval, which is fantastic since I did harbor worry that having only one idea would be risky. But having showed how enthusiastic I am about it and how much background research I have gathered hopefully foretells how the project will pan out when the time comes.

This will be my current blog for my third and final year of Game Art Design at De Montfort University. Here I will be posting up work from my courses professional briefs, everything related to my Final Major Project and any additional work I can fit inbetween.